Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Attitude to Learning
The right attitude to learning is the key to ac successful home schooling environment. Learning happens all the time whether we are conscious of it or not. Learning means using all the senses, and is an active process.
Learning includes working from both texts, books, projects as well as doing tings with the hands. Resources don't have to be expensive. Creativity, ingenuity, flexibility, inspiration and the ability to listen to your children's needs are all you need to get started.
Home schooling should always be purposeful learning, with immediate meaning for the learner. It shouldn't be for the attainment of far away, futuristic goals, or to satisfy the need of someone in authority you don't even know!
Children will not stay in any situation in which there nothing for them to learn, either because they are already familiar with it, or it does not yet make any sense to them. In these types of situations children will show boredom, be distracted, or become agitated and upset. The only way to avoid this is to make sure that what the children are expected to learn has the possibility of making sense, not only in terms of what the children already know, but in terms of what they might want to know.
Another reason children may not want to learn in any given situation can involved the perceived risk of learning, the chance of being wrong, or of making a mistake. Schools and parenting traditionally promote rewards for good and appropriate behaviour and learning. Learning does need any inducements; the virtue of learning is that it is immensely satisfying and rewarding in itself.
Children are naturally motivated to learn whenever there is something they do not understand and whenever their theory of the world is inadequate to explain present circumstances. If children need inducements beyond this, bribes, grades and stickers for example, then it may be time to re-evaluate your objectives and goals and to discuss them with the children.
Thinking positively promotes successful outcomes and reduces frustration, boredom and burn-out, both for you, the parent and the children. Turning problems into solutions through positive thinking is a valuable skill to learn and a good example to set. There are hundreds of excellent books in libraries you can access to promote positive attitudes.
While in the library brose among the books on education and children for tips and good ideas for activities you could use in your learning program. There is never any need to reinvent the wheel with education your children. There is so much information available and taking the time to find it is usually always rewarded with renewed enthusiasm, vigour and interest.
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Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
